Kewaunee County & Oysters: A 1900 Era Delicacy & the Libido

Oyster Boats' Dock, Apalachicola, Florida

 On the day before Valentine’s Day 2017, the Smithsonian Magazine carried an article entitled “Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” There was a subtitle: “Sure, if you think so.” The same article said oysters’ reputed properties dated to the Roman Empire. It also echoed the sentiments of several online articles in saying it was the lover Casanova in the 1700s who ate fifty oysters for daily breakfasts and, according to his memoirs, seduced one hundred women. Whether or not science agrees depends on the sites one reads.

 Kewaunee County’s first permanent settlers arrived in Wolf River – today Algoma – in early summer 1851. Its first newspaper, The Enterprize,* was published in Kewaunee in September 1859. Two months later, Editor Dexter Garland was invited to an oyster supper at the home of the newly married Seth and Mary Meisner Smith. Garland described the oyster supper as “sumptuous” and hoped the newlyweds’ life was as happy as the supper. Hmmmmm.

From then on, the Enterprize and the Ahnapee Record, founded in 1873, were full of oysters, advertising in most months of the years. Given the “notoriety” of oysters, one understands how they were popular at saloons such as Rod Berrio’s White Front Saloon on Ahnapee’s Steele Street. Rod said any kind of oysters were available at all times. Ladies could enjoy oysters at Berrio’s, however they were relegated to upstairs rooms. Decent women did not enter saloons although they could enjoy an alcoholic beverage in the separate ladies’ parlors. Reidy’s Billiard and Sample Rooms on Ellis Street in Kewaunee offered oysters, herring, and other such delicacies

But, with its connotations, one wonders about the popularity of church oyster suppers that were generally offered near Christmas. In mid-December 1874, Ahnapee’s Baptist Women’s Christian Association held a fair in the new church. Proceeds from the sale of oysters and other refreshments, and fancy articles were designated to the completion of the meeting house. In December 1880 it was advertised that. “A good dish of oysters can be had at the church fair tomorrow.”

It seems as if the county’s small and ethnically diverse population ate a lot of oysters.

Kewaunee County is situated on Lake Michigan, waters that had, and still have, the best fish around. Lake fish were fresh. Oysters came from the East. How were they kept fresh in the years before the railroad came to Kewaunee County in 1892?

Both fresh and canned oysters were for sale at restaurants and at places selling groceries. E. Young offered fresh oysters in his Steele Street restaurant in the Sachtleben building during the 1880s and brought in 1889 with an oyster supper featuring the best brand of oysters, brought in twice weekly. Young said he could supply customers with “anything in that line.” Anton Detloff, George W. Warner, and Algoma Restaurant were all advertising bulk oysters in any quantity. M. Erichsen offered fresh, select oysters for Christmas 1887 at his Kewaunee Steamboat House for only 25 cents a pint. Erichsen also sold by the quart or gallon.

Moses Teweles  advertised Booth’s oysters, sold fresh or in the can, at “rock bottom” prices. Teweles and Anton Leiberg advertised oysters for at least 20 years. Leiberg sold them in his 4^th Street store and, in 1900, said he would “thereafter” keep a full supply of the choicest fresh oysters. Pistor, on Ellis Street, was a Kewaunee merchant who sold canned oysters and mackerel in addition to other ocean products.

Fred Detloff announced in late October 1888 that he made arrangements for all kinds of fresh oysters and would sell at “the lowest figures.” Fred said folks could always find a good supply of cove oysters at his confectionery. While fresh oysters seem to be an odd item to stock at a confectionary, P.A. Nelson was advertising oysters, cigars and confections in his 1920 Christmas advertising. Kewaunee County residents were able to purchase oysters at a variety of businesses.

That oysters were especially popular before the advent of 1900 is not in doubt, but in some instances, oysters were described in humorous instances. When Enterprise Editor A.C. Voshardt put out a January 1889 edition, he described finishing the paper about midnight when several “traveling agents” (salesmen in 2021) and captains came in. The men arrived somewhat inebriated. and when they left, Voshardt had a bottle of Hostetter’s and a can of fresh oysters. It worked for him!

How much money John Kieweg made on a pearl was not known, but that pearl made for big business at Adolph Schuch’s Kewaunee meat market. It was November 28, 1924  when John B. Kieweg planned to use oysters with his Thanksgiving turkey and bought a pint at Schuch’s meat market. Kieweg’s purchase made news after he found a pearl the size of a pea. His plans were to have the pearl analyzed and made into a Christmas gift. Schuch wasn’t the only one selling oysters. Joesph Miller advertised the Badger Brand oysters which he sold in any quantity. Nepil and Panosh, and Edward Schneider’s Palace Meat Market were also advertising Christmas oysters, but if customers found pearls in their oysters, it didn’t seem to make news.

A December 2018 forbes.com carried an article about oysters and how the stew became a Christmas favorite. The article said that while New Englanders served oysters for Thanksgiving, those in the southeast served oyster stew for Christmas. Oyster stew was so common that it is thought that’s how oyster crackers got their name.

When the colonists arrived in the U.S., they found shell mounds that were, years later, said to date back thousands of years. Indigenous people of the Northwest also fed on oysters. Oyster bed fishing grounds were part of treaties.

The versatile oysters were eaten by all classes of people and in 1880, 700 million oysters were harvested along the east coast alone. Oysters do not last long, and most were harvested in the Chesapeake. By the 1840s canning methods brought oysters to cities along the coast. Railroads made it possible to ship oysters, packed in ice, to the Midwest. Prior to 1892, it would seem that the fresh oysters either came to Green Bay via train and then were brought to Kewaunee County by stagecoach or were brought on steamers from cities served by railroads. (Oyster boat on the Apalachicola River.)

Innovations in oyster harvesting by dragging nets across the ocean floor brought up massive quantities of oysters yielding up to 160 million pounds a year. Oysters were overfished and the methods used created substantial environmental damage. Oysters were so abundant that in 1909 sold for half as much as a pound of beef. Inexpensive as they were, oysters were used in other dishes to “stretch” them. Because of the cost, they were sold in saloons to enjoy with alcohol and were as popular as burgers and fries today. Algoma had numerous places serving oysters, while in larger cities there were oyster lunchrooms and oyster bars much the same a sushi bars today, and just as trendy.

Author David C. Murray wrote in 1861 https://www.onlinebooks.library that, “After having eaten oysters we feel joyous, light and agreeable – yes, one might say, fabulously well.” Whether or not Murray was thinking of love in 1861, there are many in 2021 who would say oysters enhance the libido. What made the things popular over 100 years ago? They weren’t just for Christmas.

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Note: Kewaunee’s newspaper was The Enterprize until 1865 when its spelling changed to Enterprise. The community now called Algoma was called Ahnepee from 1859 to 1873 when its spelling changed to Ahnapee.

When Editor Voshardt referred to Hostetter’s, it was bitters and considered a nostrum, or medicine. Developed for sale to Civil War soldiers, the product was said to protect soldiers from the impurities in water in southern swamps, rivers and bayous. The popular Hostetter’s was 47% alcohol, or 94 proof. The so-called tonic was sweetened with anise and other aromatics, but vegetable bitters gave the product a more medicinal flavor.

Cove oysters come from Prince Edward Island while Booth’s oysters came from Booth fisheries, a Chicago company that had cold storage buildings.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise, https://www.forbest.com/sites/priyashuka/2018/12/23.

Photos were taken by the blogger.